Good Writing Comes From Good Coaching

Q. You sure hear from all corners that writing skills have declined in recent years. Employers complain that nobody under age 40 can spell. Workplace mistakes are common because of weak writing. Mistakes make you look incompetent in front of customers. Why do today's college students not write nearly as well as the high-school dropouts of a couple of generations ago?

Not enough writing instruction and too much media may have addled our young people's brains. Their poor writing performance gives us a window into their thinking ability. It's not a pretty picture.

But the written word is still the most important form of communication, regardless of how widespread cellphones become or videocameras spread far and wide. The same thinking processes that were useful with a quill pen are still useful on a computer today.

Why do so many students, and so many adults, for that matter, "hate" to write? Probably for the same reason that people who have only done public speaking rarely and with no coaching "hate" to speak. With writing, as with everything else in life, you learn by doing. Practice � the right kind of practice, well-coached � makes writing enjoyable and satisfying . . . because you have become pretty good at it.

Schools should take a hard look at curriculum and activities that deny children this kind of well-coached daily practice. For example:

Filling in the blanks in a workbook with a word here or there � probably the most common school activity in the early grades � is counter-productive to the "flow."

If all the students are doing is scribbling down their personal feelings in a journal which is never edited or corrected, they become undisciplined writers who cannot compose a decent business letter or report on down the road.

If they are never taught the rules of spelling or given vocabulary enrichment, their writing will always be stunted at grade-school level . . . which appears to be where we stand, although as more and more parents discover this, it may change soon.

Homework: A good resource for parents and teachers is the WriteSource handbook series, www.thewritesource.com